The Experiences We Create

As a person with a passion in user experience, I often find myself taking note of the various experiences I find myself going through on a daily basis when going through a store.

Often due to my skin color I find myself in very unique, experiences that would probably anger some but, for the most part, amuse me greatly. The nuances between racial sets in the same situation have been my fascination of late.

Recently I had an experience that made me wonder, where has common courtesy gone?

As I stood in line to checkout, daughter in hand on our adventure to the grocery store, adventures that I like to dub “Adventures of Batman and Robin”, we came upon a situation that delivered a slight amount of disgust followed by an act of kindness that restored my faith in humanity.

Finally arriving at the cashier, we exchanged greetings in the afternoon hours of that faithful day and all was well until the person responsible for bagging the groceries just left, after watching us come through the line. Now, I have no idea what that person may be facing but at that moment I actually felt a little hurt. In my mind I thought, who would just walk away from their duty, especially when there’s a father holding his daughter while trying to pay for groceries?

What followed next was a welcome surprise. As I began to bag my own groceries, which I actually don’t mind as it allows me to pack things a bit better, the cashier paused her task of checking out the person behind me and quickly helped me with the task at hand, all while wearing a smile.

The actions of that cashier will always stick with me, simply because she could have continued doing what was in her job description and ignore my plight, but she didn’t.

For a split moment, a small adventure to the grocery store with my daughter could have ended poorly.

So thank you kind cashier, I wish the world was filled with more people like you and I hope you get a promotion.

We have a lot in common with that cashier. Every day, we’re faced with a myriad of choices. We make the choice to continue the gossip train or put it out of commission. We make choices to either support our neighbors regardless of what their skin color may be or tear them down.

As creatives, we have the power to make a difference that sticks. As we lead out in various projects and initiatives let us remember that the experience we are in charge of creating begins with those immediately around us.

How we treat our team members matters and is reflected upon the end results of the project and upon the company itself.

The experiences we create aren’t over when the project is. They continue on, woven into the energy we’ve put out into the atmosphere and much like the cycle of rain when that energy returns we’ll either be those that get wet or feel the rain.

The question is who do you want to be?

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About David Yarde

David Yarde is a multi-disciplinary creative with a passion for creating more good. He specializes in User Experience Design and Branding and has spent over 10 years working with various brands, teams and companies to uncover problems and implement responsible solutions.